The Proclamation of the German Empire (January 18, 1871)

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Version for the Berlin Palace, unveiled on March 22, 1877. Oil on canvas, 4.34 × 7.32 m, war loss; Only preserved as a black and white photograph, here shortened by about 40 cm at the right edge

The proclamation of the German Empire (January 18, 1871) is the title of several historical pictures by the German painter Anton von Werner . The ceremony in Versailles was presented , at which the Prussian King Wilhelm I was honored as German Emperor . This later became known as the " Imperial Proclamation ", although Wilhelm had had the title since January 1, 1871 according to the constitution . Werner was present at the ceremony on January 18th.

In the following years Werner created several versions of the imperial proclamation at larger intervals, two of which were shown in prominent places in Berlin . Only a third version was preserved at Otto von Bismarck 's last residence, Friedrichsruh , and is now open to the public. It is the most widely reproduced picture for the imperial proclamation.

All versions show the Grand Duke of Baden's cheers for the new emperor. As a result, the empire appears as the work of the German princes and their soldiers and advisers. But the three versions show strong differences, which give them documentary and historical didactic value. Werner adapted his descriptions to the changes that occurred. The sitters are not only getting older, but Bismarck is emphasized more in the second and third versions by a white parade uniform, and he wears the order Pour le Mérite , which he was only awarded in 1884. Other figures take a back seat or disappear, while in the third version the Minister of War Albrecht von Roon joins the scene, who did not take part in the proclamation.

For Werner, working on the picture began the rise to one of the busiest and most influential German artists.

First version 1877

On this reproduction of the painting, Werner's self-portrait can be seen on the far right edge (with a mustache).
The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles. A few days after the imperial proclamation, the besiegers of Paris used it as a hospital (contemporary painting).

Werner had the final phase of the Franco-Prussian War in the headquarters of the III in 1870 through the mediation of his grand-ducal patron Friedrich von Baden . Army under the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm experienced. In January 1871 the latter asked him to travel from Karlsruhe to the “ Great Headquarters ” in the Palace of Versailles in order to “experience” “something worthy of your brush here”. Werner only learned immediately beforehand on January 18th that it was going to be the "Proclamation of the German Empire". The crown prince was impressed by the design of the Palace of Versailles, which presented itself to its visitors as a national fame of France with its historical paintings. He wanted something similar for Berlin, but unlike Napoleon Bonaparte, he had never had the idea of having the painter design the upcoming ceremony for posterity. Napoleon had allowed Jacques-Louis David to stage the equipment and the appearance of those involved in his coronation for a history painting.

The ceremony in the Versailles Hall of Mirrors was short and simple. In the elongated gallery, simple Prussian and Bavarian soldiers stood in order on the window side, their officers crowded on the mirror side, mixed with some from other southern German armies. The king, accompanied by German federal princes and his entourage, walked through the trellis to the center, where a field altar was erected. A military chaplain from Potsdam celebrated a service there, which was concluded with the singing of the chant Now thank God . Then the group went to a flat platform at the end of the gallery, where the princes stood with Wilhelm in the middle. Bismarck, who was standing below and was surrounded by military leaders, read the imperial proclamation. Thereupon the Grand Duke of Baden raised “cheers” to “his Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm”, which those present repeated three times. The ceremony was over as the cheers continued among the troops lined up in the palace and park.

During the service, Werner was able to quickly draw the main characters up close . Later he portrayed the federal princes , the representatives of the Hanseatic cities and numerous officers. During the work, an almost friendly relationship arose with the Crown Prince, who established Werner's personal relationships with Federal Chancellor Bismarck and also with Kaiser Wilhelm I.

Werner had the problem of depicting the trellis that the soldiers and the officers formed on the gallery and the princes grouped around the emperor on it. The adjacent oil painting by Victor Bachereau-Reverchon (1842–1885) shows the relatively narrow room, from the end of which the flat gallery for the emperor is already removed. It was also important to include the ceiling paintings in the picture, which glorified Louis XIV as the conqueror of German countries and cities. In January 1871, a conceptual design and later a model loo were created , which was approved by the Crown Prince.

The picture was commissioned for the Berlin City Palace . Werner determined the image format according to a location he had chosen in the “White Hall”, the largest in the palace, which was used for public events such as the opening of the Reichstag and large court celebrations. His visit was the end and highlight of the guided tours through the representation rooms of the palace, in which several hundred paying visitors took part every day. The picture was opposite the window wall, through which the view of the street Unter den Linden opened. When Wilhelm II ordered the redesign of the hall in 1892, the picture was placed in the 9.5 × 9.7 meter compartment at the western end of the picture gallery, which made it less effective. After the transformation of the picture gallery into a tapestry gallery by Wilhelm II in 1914 and in the following years of the Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism , the painting, like most of the “patriotic pictures” of the castle, was hidden from the eyes of the visitors. Stored in the palace since 1914, Werner's main plant burned down on February 2, 1945 during an air raid on Berlin during World War II .

Second version 1882

Version for the Hall of Fame of the Berlin Armory , 1883, mural, wax paint on canvas, 5.0 × 6.0 m; Loss of war

The great popularity of the painting prompted Wilhelm I to commission Werner with the depiction of the imperial proclamation in the newly built hall of fame of the Prussian army in the Berlin armory . There, opposite the entrance to the ruler's hall, two murals by Werner were supposed to flank the figure of the goddess of victory Viktoria by Fritz Schaper : On the left, the coronation of Frederick III. as the Prussian King and on the right the proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor in 1701 and 1871. The dome painted by Friedrich Geselschap arched above it.

Werner designed a frontal representation that showed Wilhelm on a high pedestal surrounded by German princes. At the lowest level, Bismarck, whom Werner had highlighted in a white uniform for reasons of color composition, turned to Roon , Moltke and other German military leaders. In the foreground you could see cheering officers in the right area of ​​the picture and a larger group of simple soldiers in the left. In between, two allegorical figures held the emperor's coat of arms. Wilhelm rejected Werner's design as unrealistic, especially since Roon had not attended the ceremony. On the other hand, he agreed with Bismarck's also inappropriately white officer's coat: "You are right, it was wrongly dressed".

Because of the smaller width of the picture, Werner had to reduce the number of figures considerably. Only the princes of seven larger states remained around the figures of Wilhelm I, the Crown Prince and the Grand Duke of Baden. Werner reduced the group of officers even more, placing Georg von Kameke, who had meanwhile been appointed Minister of War, in the foreground, while others came back. The brotherhood of arms between Prussia and Bavaria now documented a handshake between the Prussian general Leonhard von Blumenthal and his Bavarian comrade Jakob von Hartmann , highlighted by his snow-white hair and his light blue uniform.

  • "The coronation of Frederick I as king in Prussia" (1887) was the counterpart to the proclamation in the armory

  • Geselschap's "Establishment of the Empire" in the dome, including the Victoria and Werner murals

  • Detail, Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden (right) cheers for Kaiser Wilhelm; Wilhelm carries the oak leaves to the Pour le Mérite

  • Detail, Jakob von Hartmann and Leonhard von Blumenthal shake hands; Bismarck with the oak leaves to the Pour le Mérite

  • Detail, u. a. with Crown Prince Friedrich and Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (far left); the cuirassier wheelwright (bottom center) with a thick full beard

In the reception of the second version of the picture it is often problematized that some things, such as Bismarck's now white uniform skirt, do not correspond to the actual situation in 1871. However, Werner had deliberately depicted the participants in the imperial proclamation according to the real conditions in 1882 and thus a decade after the founding of the Empire . The sitters had aged a good ten years and at the same time had gained in importance. The emperor was now more than just a primus inter pares and carried the oak leaves to the Pour le Mérite, which he had laid out in 1873 and was to lend to Bismarck in 1884. The fact that Bismarck also wears it in the picture is a later addition by Werner. Thomas W. Gaehtgens therefore ascribes the function of the picture to “not depicting history, […] but legitimizing the present with the help of a past event”.

In accordance with Wilhelm's ideas, the second version was created like an excerpt from the first with a strong emphasis on the updated figures of Wilhelm in front of the princes and flags and Bismarck in front of the military leaders and officers. Only one cuirassier represented the simple soldiers, namely in the left foreground Louis Stellmacher (1848–1915) from Lychen from the Regiment of the Gardes du Corps, standing at attention . In contrast to the first version, he had become more corpulent and wears a rustling full beard (see the pictures).

The mural survived the air raids on the armory in November 1943, but was no longer in its frame after further damage to the building at the end of the war.

Third version 1885

Version for Otto von Bismarck, presented on April 1, 1885. Oil on canvas, 1.67 × 2.02 m, Otto von Bismarck Foundation , Friedrichsruh

Werner's second version, like the Hall of Fame in general, was considered a great success. The Hohenzollern family enthusiastically asked Werner to paint another painting of the imperial proclamation to give to the "Iron Chancellor" Bismarck on his 70th birthday in 1885. In the short time that was available, Werner was only able to meet his request by painting over the black and white model loo of the armory version. Again the participants got a little older and Bismarck received the medal. At the end of March 1885 Werner took advantage of a visit by the Grand Duke of Baden to his studio to update his representation in the painting.

An exception was Roon, who died in 1879 and was not present in 1871. Wilhelm I had insisted on including him in the painting because of his close ties to Bismarck. Werner now painted Roon as he would have looked if he had been a participant in the proclamation. He had portrayed him several times in paintings on the Franco-German War. Werner sacrificed Hartmann's handshake with Blumenthal for Roon's place. Both moved so closely together that Hartmann's turn to Blumenthal now seems unmotivated.

Fourth version 1913

Auditorium of the Realgymnasium Frankfurt (Oder) around 1925 with a view of the 4th version. Oil on canvas, 5.00 × 7.55 m.

Werner created a hardly received fourth version of the imperial proclamation in 1913 as a mural for the new building of the secondary school in Frankfurt (Oder) (oil paints on canvas, 5.00 × 7.55 meters). The appearance of the picture is not known. A similarity to the second and third versions can be guessed from the composition sketch and a photo of the auditorium with the Sauer organ and the mural. As a caption it bore the final sentence of the imperial proclamation of January 18, 1871.

It remained undamaged in the Second World War, but disappeared after 1945. A search by the Frankfurt (Oder) city archive on the occasion of Werner's 150th birthday remained unsuccessful. The last clues and traces are lost in 1948. At that time, the picture is said to have been stored in the attic of the makeshift building of the city theater , to which it was probably given for "decorative purposes".

literature

  • Dominik Bartmann (Ed.): Anton von Werner. Story in pictures. Hirmer, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7774-6140-7 (exhibition catalog).
  • Dominik Bartmann: Anton von Werner. On art and art politics in the German Empire. Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-87157-108-3 .
  • Thomas W. Gaehtgens : Anton von Werner, the proclamation of the German Empire; a history picture in the change of Prussian politics. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-596-10325-8 .
  • Peter Paret : Anton von Werner's "Imperial Proclamation in Versailles". In: Peter Paret: Art as History. Culture and politics from Menzel to Fontane. CH Beck, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-34425-9 , pp. 193-210.
  • Hans-Christian Kokalj: Representation of the imperial proclamation in Versailles. In: Tobias Arand (Ed.): “What a turning point through God's providence.” The Franco-German War 1870/71 and the forms of its historical memory in both countries from the Empire to the present. Center for Teacher Education, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-934064-57-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoting from Gaehtgens: Anton von Werner, the proclamation of the German Empire; a history picture in the change of Prussian politics. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 9.
  2. ↑ For the staging of David see Michael Sauer : Pictures in history lessons. Kallmeyer, Seelze-Velber 2000, ISBN 3-7800-4923-6 , p. 113.
  3. ^ Description of the ceremony at Gaehtgens: Anton von Werner. The Proclamation , pp. 14-17.
  4. ↑ Gaehtgens: Anton von Werner. The Proclamation , pp. 18, 22; Preliminary study in oil, 78 × 158 cm, private property in Saxony, lost.
  5. ^ E. Hennings: The royal palace in Berlin. A guide through its sights. Self-published by the author, Berlin undated [around 1906], p. 31 for the picture and the picture gallery (below), p. 6 for the number of visitors.
  6. ↑ On the remodeling Goerd Peschken, Hans-Werner Klünner: Das Berliner Schloß. Classic Berlin. With the collaboration of Fritz-Eugen Keller and Thilo Eggeling. Propylaeen, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-549-06652-X , pp. 490-492, on the picture and tapestry gallery (below), pp. 487 f.
  7. ↑ Bartmann 1985, p. 114.
  8. ↑ This is rarely noticed, as in: Dietrich Grünewald (Ed.): Discovering art. Cornelsen, Berlin 2009, p. 15.
  9. ↑ Gaehtgens: Anton von Werner, the proclamation of the German Empire; a history picture in the change of Prussian politics. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 64.
  10. ↑ Biographical information on wheelwright in the article From Lychen to Versailles . In: Neue Lychener Zeitung from October 5, 2016; in the lemma "Regiment of the Gardes du Corps" is his portrait sketch drawn by Werner in 1871.
  11. ↑ See the images of the destroyed ruler's hall in Regina Müller: Das Berliner Zeughaus. The building history. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-89488-055-4 , p. 146 (No. 246, November 1943) and 256 (No. 253, 1945).
  12. ↑ Gaehtgens: Anton von Werner, the proclamation of the German Empire; a history picture in the change of Prussian politics. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 65.
  13. ^ Bartmann: Anton von Werner. On art and art politics in the German Empire , p. 120.
  14. ^ Ralf Targiel : On the whereabouts of the Frankfurt copy of the "Imperial Coronation" by Anton von Werner . In: Messages. Historical association to Frankfurt (Oder) . 2nd issue 1993, pp. 4-6.